What MSNBC had to say TODAY about studies on game violence and aggression

[vote 4 democracy]

Does game violence make teens aggressive?

Researchers say parents should look closely at findings of new study
In a recent research study, adolescents played two different types of video games for 30 minutes. Teens that played the violent game (right) showed increased activity in the amygdala, which is involved in emotional arousal.

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Dec. 8: Research says teens playing violent video games show negative effects on brain scans. MSNBC.com's Dara Brown reports.
MSNBC.com

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Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine say that brain scans of kids who played a violent video game showed an increase in emotional arousal – and a corresponding decrease of activity in brain areas involved in self-control, inhibition and attention.

Does this mean that your teenager will feel an uncontrollable urge to go on a shooting rampage after playing “Call of Duty?”

Vince Mathews, the principal investigator on the study, hesitates to make that leap. But he says he does think that the study should encourage parents to look more closely at the types of games their kids are playing.

“Based on our results, I think parents should be aware of the relationship between violent video-game playing and brain function.”

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[trumad]

1. What’s not clear is whether the activity picked up by the MRIs indicates a lingering —

look---there's a thread that I posted containing 100's of posts from folks who have played video games for the last 20 years and by folks who have kids who currently play..

Every one of them reports that these types of reports are pure bullshit... WHY... because we have first hand knowledge of these so-called effects and it's clear that there is no effect.

As the report says...It's unclear weather the activity causes any effect...

SO---we're going to bye into the fact that it's bad when reports like this are so ambiguous?

Please

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. You are forgetting that some kids don't get the best parenting

I am willing to bet that the people on DU who report no problems with violence from playing video games were raised in loving homes and taught to develop good critical thinking skills.

My concern is for the kids whose parents use violent media as a babysitter. There are too many parents who for one reason or another ignore their kids. Those kids often don't see video games as fantasy because no adult has supervised them and helped them realize those games are make believe.

I am not trying to advocate censorship for this reason. I just think we all need to realize that not all kids should be exposed to violent media. We cannot make the assumption that this report is bullshit because DUers disagree with it. Kids are more violent today; that is a fact. For some it is just a phase, for others a lifelong compulsion. That should alarm all of us.

[Zhade]

40. Boy, THAT'S not true, at least in my case.

Parents love me, but they were drunks while I was growing up.

Yet I turned out fine.

EDIT: And it's false to say kids are more violent; as games have gone up in popularity, societal violence has gone down. There's a graph floating around on these gaming threads that proves that.

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. Sorry I disagree

I teach. Our kids are more violent every year.

[Zhade]

43. And yet, statistics and studies show you're wrong.

Maybe you just aren't lucky with the kids you get?

[proud2BlibKansan]

44. And I can post studies that support what I know

[moggie]

2. What about sport?

Playing an aggressive game on a console: bad; playing an aggressive game on the football field: good?

[trumad]

3. Exactly....

[havocmom]

27. Well, dodge-ball and tag banned in some schools

:evilgrin:

[applegrove]

12. Is there that much violence in sport? Isn't it mostly a dance of bodily

function and hand eye coordination? I mean other than boxing..most of what one learns in sports is pretty good for you. Especially the team & self-esteem parts. What worries me about video games is that there may be a push to turn video game players into the next generation of soldiers. And though I believe we need armies for defensive and intervention in genocide..I'm not sure that some kid juiced up on violence is going to make the best soldier.

[gollygee]

19. Some sports are very aggressive

and violently so.

Football, hockey, roller derby (lol) . . . the more contact, the more violent the sport is. So baseball, not so much.

What does "juiced up on violence" mean? You state as if it's a fact that something happens that makes someone "juiced up on violence" when they play violent video games. There is no evidence that such a state exists.

[applegrove]

28. Their are goals and excellence and strength in doing much in sport.

Usually by the time a hockey player reaches 13..the parents and the child decide whether to have them continue in competitive hockey as it gets more aggressive. And many families opt out at that point. Shouldn't parents also have the right information for videos: "this video is very aggressive and will cause aggression in my son" at 13 too?

Same sorta conscious decision.

[gollygee]

29. Games have warning labels

and that's exactly why.

[mondo joe]

4. I want a report that scans the brains of people who repeatedly post hogwash on message boards.

Okay?

[annabanana]

7. lol!

There are some violent tendencies aroused in ME when I view great piles of steaming horseshit, That's for sure!

[pooja]

5. I know that when power rangers and teenage mutant ninjas were

popular, children would emmulate what was seen. There were huge bans on kung fu activities at recess. There have been studies on the influence of t.v. on population. We all know about the propaganda that is spewn out everyday.

[napi21]

6. I guess there could be something to this.

I'm old now, but I remember the emotional reaction I had when I was young and went to a movie like American Graffiti, and the emotional HIGH I had as we left the theater. Man, you'd get in your own car and, if you were lucky enough to have glass packs, rev it up and speed out of the parking lot!

I can't speak for playing violent computer games, but I still get that flutter when an old Beach Boys song comes on the radio! Could it be people get a similar emotional reaction to these games??? I don't know.

[baldguy]

8. The same things were said about comic books in the '50s.

But "Tales From The Crypt" didn't turn Beaver Cleaver into a cannibal zombie.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. Those comic books were not even close to as realistic

as some of these video games are.

[Hippo_Tron]

31. People will be saying the same thing about the video games we have now in 50 years

[proud2BlibKansan]

37. SO?

Does that justify their violent content?

[Hippo_Tron]

38. I don't see why it needs to be justified

I'm just saying that whenever there's something that parents get scared of their kids being exposed to some Senator will bitch about it and said Senator will look like an idiot in 50 years.

[moggie]

41. I'm not sure the realism issue is that simple

I'm not a big comics fan, so I can't really comment on them. But long before the moral panic about comics, many people were convinced that written fiction was corrupting kids. This goes back at least as far as the mid-19th century: penny dreadfuls in the UK, dime novels in the US. And, as we all know, the imagination can make written fiction realistic indeed. When I read a Raymond Chandler pulp novel, I can practically smell 1930s/40s LA, hear the gaudy patter of the cheap hoods, see the dangerous glitter of the dames, and feel the stunning shock of a pistol-whipping - and this can stay with me for some time after. By contrast, the depiction of crime in a game like Grand Theft Auto never convinces. It's just pixels.

If you're unconvinced by that, I'll point out that the more realistic the game, the more it brings home to the player that violence has negative consequences. The game cited in this research is Call of Duty, a WWII game. I haven't played it, but I've played the sequel, Call of Duty 2, and if a non-retarded player relates it at all to the real world, the message they're likely to take away is that it's best to stay well away from guns (and army recruiting offices).

[NNadir]

9. I'm not sure, though I'm no expert, whether these reductionist approaches work.

Is it really true that one can discern negative emotional effects simply by an MRI?

Note we don't allow our kids to play violent games. I've seen them in places like Walmart, with small children playing the demonstrators, and it made me sick. But do they make all players sick in an active way?

[w4rma]

10. Hillary's pet issue. (nt)

[Warren Stupidity]

11. So basically the kids were having fun?

THAT HAS GOT TO STOP RIGHT NOW!

[Rageneau]

13. One day, we'll be hearing of the "DOOM" defense.

"I couldn't help it. After playing that game, everybody became mutants and I had to kill them."

[Hippo_Tron]

32. There was a Law and Order episode about that actually

[jsamuel]

14. so, playing games is correlated to brain activity

ok

is brain activity correlated to all things bad or can brain activity be a good thing?

[gollygee]

15. I *HATE* how that's written

it's written like propaganda. News sources seem to think telling people what they want to hear will make them read their source more.

"hesitated to make that leap" - The reason he hesitated to make that leap is because that leap CAN NOT be made based upon evidence. There is no evidence that . . . would be a less biased way of saying that. But no, they chose to say, "hesitated to make that leap" that sounds like A does cause B but he hesitates to say it. The truth is that there is no evidence that A causes B.

[Leftist78]

16. Sure it makes kids more violent.

and every time I listen to "Hey Joe" I kill my girlfriend and run to Mexico. :eyes: I remember this shit when Columbine happened. They played Doom so it HAD to be partially responsible. Never mind that Doom sold over 4 million copies, two kids shoot up a school and all of the sudden it's the video game's fault. Stupid people falling for bogus ideas about a connection between fantasy and reality make me feel violent. :argh:

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. Those 2 kids were crazy

Their parents ignored the warning signs. I have a friend who lives in Littleton and her kids were the same age. She had known one of those boys since he was in 1st grade. She described him as a troubled kid whose parents constantly defended him. He got kicked off the soccer team and it was the coach's fault. He got into trouble at school and it was the teacher's fault. He was a bully but his parents claimed he was picked on. His parents were in a constant state of denial.

So it wasn't the video game's fault but it seems pretty obvious that this kid didn't need to be playing a violent video game. He should have been spending that time in therapy.

[Leftist78]

24. Agreed

but the fact that they were fucked up is why Columbine happened, and the video game had absolutely nothing to do with it at all. I'm tired of these nanny-state people trying to protect us from everything. I totally agree that the parents of those kids needed to be culpable in some way also. How can your kid be building pipe bombs in the basement without you knowing something about it? Maybe if they'd taken the blinders off they'd have seen what was going on.

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. I am really torn on this issue

I hate to restrict choices. But I know first hand that many kids are over-exposed to violent media. I could tell you stories that would curl your hair.

[Leftist78]

26. I don't think

there should be any restriction. If some kids are overexposed to violence, then that's where parental responsibility should come in. You have to make proper choices for your children. I think the biggest problem making our kids crass and hate-filled is the rampant unchecked consumerism that goes unchallenged by most parents, and most people for that matter. The me-first attitude of most of those kids comes from their parents. when every person is seen as an obstacle to what you want, it's not that much of a leap to make them disposable. The isolationist dehumanizing effect of modern culture has far more to do with violent kids then violent video games.

[proud2BlibKansan]

30. The problem is too many parents don't do their job too well

and their kids become our problem sometimes.

[Hippo_Tron]

33. Parents were completely out of the loop, that was the key with Columbine

They didn't even realize they were buying guns and making bombs in the garage.

[Odin2005]

20. OMG, playing video games causes brain activity, whoda thunk it?

The video game haters are realy have no brains. :eyes:

[jsamuel]

23. actually, it is correlated, they didn't even prove causation of brain activity

[Rex]

22. Next thing you know they will be masturbating in the bathroom.

Poor besieged parents. Whatever you do, don't let them get emotionally aroused!

[Hippo_Tron]

34. LMAO reminds me of that episode of American Dad

"Masturbation is for perverts and Democrats"

[SaveOurDemocracy]

36. Perhaps we should revive the...

world-wide orgasm for peace thread?? Hope I didn't miss it.

:evilgrin:

[SaveOurDemocracy]

35. Once THAT happens....

we're DOOMED!! :rofl:

[Evoman]

39. What I posted in the other Videogame thread:

"As much as we like to think the world is taking a turn for the worse, it really isn't. Hey, I can be a grouch sometimes (and I'm only 27), but it doesn't seem to me that the kids these days are all that bad. A bit narcissitic, perhaps, but I think that has more to do with a child-centered society, than movies or videogames.

To be honest, whenever I go anywhere, its seems to me that the young kids and teenagers are among the most friendly and polite in society. I mean, I go to the mall, and they hold my door open for me. The other day, I dropped a bag of groceries, and some teenagers helped me pick them up. On the other hand, older people (especially boomer aged people) are among the rudest people around. They never hold doors open, they're always bitching, and the way they treat employees at stores is appalling. Whens the last time you saw a teenager chew out a store manager for something beyond their control?

The kids are okay. Could video games have an effect? Maybe, but not half as much as playing aggressive sports. The biggest assholes, and the most violent people, when I was younger were the sports assholes. The football players, the hockey players....not the nerds playing their violent video games.

People are overreacting. These scientists are speculating wayyyy beyond their evidence...its almost embarrasing. Is that how science is being done in another fields?

Whats worse..playing video games or being conscripted into the army, like young children were forced to do so many times in our past?"